Prior to the present invention it has been necessary to manually load food products so that they may have a stick either automatically or manually inserted into them. This has typically been done by using several personnel who must rapidly and accurately place the food items onto a carrying or loading device. These operators must become highly skilled through experience before they are able to perform satisfactorily. The job is very labor intensive. The job also presents some safety concerns since the operators must work quickly in and around moving mechanical equipment.
An example of a manual operation for loading hot dogs or food articles prior to automatic stick insertion can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,379,795, April 12, 1983, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,430,930, Feb. 14, 1984, both to Walser and both commonly assigned to Automated Food Systems, Inc. In these patents, food articles are manually loaded into food grippers. The grippers then hold the food in position for automatic stick insertion. Once the sticks are inserted the grippers release the food and the food is conveyed to the next position for further processing.
The main disadvantage of the manual loading in these two patents is that it often results in empty grippers. Since an operator is required to manually load a number of food items in a relatively confined space and in a relatively short period of time, some spaces are frequently missed.
Thus, there is a need for an automated system that can efficiently and safely position food in proper alignment with a stick loading device and then automatically insert the stick into the food.